# AWD12927 Admin Supplement Equipment

> **NIH NIH R35** · UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA · 2024 · $100,900

## Abstract

Stoppel’s NIH NIGMS MIRA: 1 R35GM147041-01: Leveraging biodiversity and utilizing genetic
engineering to expand the structure and function of silk fibroin biopolymers for biomedical
applications
Project Summary for R35GM147041-01
Materials for applications in healthcare and medicine usually come from two main groups (a) synthetic polymers
specifically designed to achieve a certain goal or (b) naturally derived biopolymers that are leveraged in their
native or slightly modified state for a specific goal. The advantage of being a synthetic chemist is that technically,
if you can synthesize it, the possibilities are infinite, but the downfall is that often solvents or portions of the
polymer cause cytocompatibility issues or concerns when it comes to translation and implantation in a human.
Alternatively, unmodified natural biopolymers, or proteins, have an easier path toward Food and Drug
Administration’s approval, but lack the customizability afforded in synthesis or chemical modification. Genetic
engineering via production of small peptides in bacteria has improved the availability of customizable short
peptides, but proteins on the order of hundreds of kilodaltons cannot be consistently and reliably produced this
way. This is the case for the silk fibroin biopolymers isolated from caterpillars in the Lepidoptera order, where
the heavy chain of silk fibroin is known to be over 300 kilodaltons. Genetic engineering, using tools such as
CRISPR or PiggyBac, provides an avenue for theoretically modifying the sequence of silk proteins, which has
been attempted with limited success in the domesticated silkworm, Bombyx mori. However, silk is collected from
the cocoon of the B. mori pupae, meaning that the life cycle of this silkworm is interrupted, making it difficult to
maintain these modified populations or assess phenotypes in a high-throughput manner. To address this, silk
fibroin will be isolated from an entirely different silk-producing species: Plodia interpunctella (Indianmeal moth).
Under specific conditions, this agricultural pest produces sheets of silk prior to entering the cocooning phase.
These easily collectable sheets of silk fibers can then be cleaned, degummed, and regenerated to an aqueous
biopolymer solution. Moreover, unlike B. mori, P. interpunctella silk collection does not interrupt the life cycle of
the silkworm/moth and these silkworms are easier to stably genetically modify though embryo injections
compared to B. mori. In this Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award, genetic engineering will be leveraged to
modify the silk fibroin protein sequence at the organismal level, adding in new peptide sequences such as
mammalian cell binding motifs or sites for human growth factor sequestration. Scale-up of the process will be
achieved via transcriptional regulation of silk fibroin as a function of external stimuli such as humidity or
pathogens. Together, these two strategies for enhancing the bio-functionality of the silk fibroin pro...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 11055849
- **Project number:** 3R35GM147041-02S1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
- **Principal Investigator:** Whitney L Stoppel
- **Activity code:** R35 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $100,900
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2022-08-15 → 2027-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11055849

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 11055849, AWD12927 Admin Supplement Equipment (3R35GM147041-02S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/11055849. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*